저자: PeterSchiff · 외국인
요약 보기
미국 경제가 높은 부채와 고금리 국면에 들어서 결국 붕괴할 것이라는 주장이다. 금리 흐름: 40년간 이어진 채권 강세장(10년물 금리 1981년 16%→2021년 1% 미만)이 끝나고 고금리 국면으로 전환 중이며, 2002년 이후 최고 수준인 5년물 5.09%, 10년물 5.33%, 30년물 5.69%를 언급했다. 그는 금리가 여기서 더 오를 것으로 본다. 주식시장: S&P500 지수는 소수 대형주에 의존하는 협소한 상승장이다. 지수가 고점 1% 이내일 때도 평균 약 430개 종목이 고점 대비 21.5% 이상 하락해 있었다고 계산했다. 1973년과 1999~2000년에 같은 현상이 나타났고 이후 S&P500이 약 50% 하락했다는 점을 근거로 큰 조정을 경고했다. 다만 AI가 이번엔 다르다는 주장에 대해서는 과거에도 늘 그렇게 말했다며 회의적이다. 금·채권: 외국 중앙은행의 금 매입(금 가격 약 2,000달러에서 1년 내 5,000달러 이상)을 탈달러화 및 미 국채 신뢰 저하의 신호로 해석했다. 주식이 먼저 무너지면 채권 반등이 있을 수 있으나 그 상승은 일시적일 수 있고, 금이 더 지속적인 안전자산이라고 주장했다. 부동산: 과거 수십 년간 저금리 주택담보대출 재융자가 소비 여력을 떠받쳤으나 이제 불가능하다고 본다. 모기지 금리가 9~12%까지 오르면 현재 집값을 감당할 수 있는 미국인은 대부분 없으며, 집값 폭락 외에는 거래가 성립하기 어렵다고 했다. 주택 관련 일자리 대량 해고와 페니메이·프레디맥 파산 가능성도 언급했다. 재정: AI 투자에 자금이 쏠리면서 빅테크가 국채 시장의 대출자에서 차입자로 바뀌고 있다. 금리 10%, 부채 50조 달러 가정 시 연 이자가 약 5조 달러로 세수 대부분에 해당한다는 시나리오를 제시했으나, 기존 부채가 한꺼번에 재조정되는 것은 아니라는 한계를 스스로 인정했다. 주의: 이 요약은 예측 발언에 대한 정리이며 투자 조언이 아니다. 과거 수치 설명과 미래 예측은 구분해서 봐야 한다.
다듬은 글
But, you know, between now and then there will be a total economic collapse , because today we have too much debt to afford to pay that kind of interest. Well, now we are entering phase four, which is high debt and high interest rates . Of course, we're going to have the highest debt we've ever had, and we may even have the highest interest rates we've ever seen at the same time.
And therefore, this entire economy is going to implode because it is built on a foundation of debt that is unpayable. The real estate market is going to collapse completely , because it is based on cheap money that no longer exists. It's as if the consequences of the debt are finally catching up with us .
You know, we knew this was inevitable. In fact, the Federal Reserve, every time the Fed chairman was asked about our debt, would say, "Well , the debt is not unsustainable, but the path forward is." And that's what our leaders were saying. You know, we can handle it now, but if we continue in this direction, we won't be able to.
Well, I always argued that if you grant that we are on an unsustainable path, how do you know when you are going to reach the unsustainable destination? And that's not what our creditors want to hear. They don't want to hear that the dollars they will receive as payment won't be worth much. So, instead of waiting for inflation to destroy the value of their bonds, they're simply going to withdraw their money now.
And that's what's putting all the downward pressure on bonds and the upward pressure on rates. But the real bad news is not where the rates are now, but where they are going. Because they're going to go up much more. We're already at the highest rates since 2002 as you and I speak. The 5-year Treasury note is at 5.09, the 10-year note at 5.33, and the 30- year note at 5.69.
These are the highest returns so far, but they won't be the highest tomorrow, or probably later today. But we will continue to move forward. People forget that we were in a bull bond market, which meant falling yields for 40 years. The yield on a 10-year Treasury bond fell from 16% in 1981 to less than 1% in 2021.
You know, over that same period, a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell from 18% to 2.5 /8%. High interest rates were affordable because we didn't have that much debt to which those rates applied. The next phase really began with the 2008 financial crisis. Debt exploded even further, but then interest rates plummeted.
So we had a really high debt, but really low interest rates . And it was that combination that made the high debt seem manageable, seem affordable. And that's what caused all the complacency of the last few decades about the accumulation of debt, because everyone was saying, "Well, we can pay it. It's not that big of a deal ." The distinction in Schiff's argument is between the amount of debt and the cost of carrying it.
A large balance can seem manageable when borrowing is cheap. As debt is refinanced at higher rates , that calculation changes. He warns that investors could demand more compensation for inflation and credit risk. The next question is how long stock prices can ignore those pressures. Schiff's answer is that a strong main index can hide weakness beneath it.
Because those stocks have been rising despite the increase in bond yields. And some people attribute the rise in bond yields to all the capital spending coming from the " magnificent seven". But at some point there will be a collision, because rates are not going to stop rising. Then, at some point, those higher rates will start to matter to the markets and the economy.
And so, at some point you will see a big drop in stock prices. You know, markets can ignore the increase in yields for a while. I mean, the most dramatic example was 1987, where bond yields rose almost all year. They were obviously much taller than they are right now. But they kept going up and the stock market kept ignoring it until, you know, October, and then there was a crash .
And it was the stock market crash that finally put a floor under the bond market, and we had a great rally in the bond market after the stock market finally worried about the bond market and collapsed. So, maybe we'll see something similar. Don't know. What do you think about this? It's not even the entire United States stock market.
You're talking about a couple dozen shares. I mean, it's the average, I did the numbers myself last week. And when the S&P was within 1% of an all-time high, only about 430 of those stocks on average were 21.5 percent below their highs. Those 430, like 86% of them. But then, a full 60% of those names fell by more than 20%.
Now, I pointed out that there were two occasions, twice in the last 100 years, where you had such bad amplitude. And that breadth means when you have so few stocks participating in the rally. The only two times this happened were in 1973, at the end of the 1960s with the "Nifty 50", and then in 2000, 1999-2000, with the tech bubble.
And after both periods, you had a drop of nearly 50% in the S&P. So, if we do n't have a 50% drop, that would be unprecedented. Perhaps this time will be different. Perhaps AI means it's different. But you must remember that they always think it's different. Whenever you arrive at a situation that you know is extreme and has a history of ending in disaster, everyone always says: yes, but this time it 's different.
Look, look what happened to the price of gold. It didn't go up from $ 2,000 an ounce to over $5,000 in about a year for no reason. And it wasn't American speculators or investors who were buying it. It was the foreign central banks . Why are they doing that? They were dedollarizing, but you know , countries are moving away from the US dollar even though they could get 5% returns on their treasury bonds.
They prefer to hold gold and receive no return than to hold a treasury bond and earn 5%. That says a lot about how worried they are now about the US debt situation. So that, to me , is the most logical explanation. I think it's probably a bad sign, because what it shows me is that retail investors believe they're getting a good deal here.
They 're looking at these higher bond yields and thinking, "Oh, that's pretty attractive." "We haven't had rates this high in 20 years, you know, let me assure you of them." But they have short memories. They don't realize how much higher the returns were 30 years ago. So, if we could reach a maximum of 20 years, who says we ca n't reach a maximum of 30 years?
And there's a big difference between where yields were in 2002 and where they were in 1992. What if we get back to where they were in 1982? Now , now you're talking about a completely different world. So, eventually, you'll start to see investors selling their bond funds. But I think the returns will be much higher when that happens, because they'll be hurting from the losses and they're going to, you know, but right now they expect to win.
I think that's what they'll initially see. Yes, I think if we see, you know, a real drop in those stocks, I think there will be a rebound in bonds. Now, I think that will be a selling opportunity, uh, within that upturn, but I think we'll have one. Uh, I think the best and most sustainable rally will be in gold.
So that's what I would buy, you know, with my money if I were getting out of tech stocks. It's like gold is a much better safe haven because gold is truly a safe haven against Treasury bonds. Because if Treasury bonds are going to fall, where do you go? You know, gold is the last refuge left standing in that environment.
This is where the warning about stocks and the argument about gold connect. Schiff thinks investors might move into bonds first if tech stocks fall, but he also argues that a bond rally could be temporary if concerns about debt and inflation persist. That's why he prefers gold in this scenario. He sees a risk both to financial assets and to the purchasing power of the dollars behind them.
That doesn't make gold a guaranteed winner, and it doesn't transform its historical crisis comparisons into a timeline. The problem is if the assets that people expect to protect a portfolio respond differently than they assumed. How important housing has been to the overall consumption-based economy .
Because what has given consumers so much purchasing power is not just the value of homes as real estate prices rise, but the serial cash refinancing that Americans did for 40 years, where every few years you could refinance your mortgage, draw cash that you could spend, and at the same time reduce your monthly payment.
And so, that was like the gift he kept giving. It was a lifeline for the consumer that has now been cut off. Because there is no more refinancing. Mortgage rates will simply continue to rise higher and higher, and the only thing that can give way is the price of the house. Because what made expensive houses affordable were cheap mortgages.
Well, when mortgage rates go back to 9%, 10%, 11%, 12%, which is where they're going, nobody can afford, at least not most Americans, to buy a house at today's prices. It's simply impossible. So the only way to allow a transaction is for the price of housing to collapse. And that has its own consequences, because for many Americans, that means bankruptcy.
They are ruined . That is their greatest asset. They've lost it. And it means that many banks, the lenders who have lent a lot of money to homeowners, well, are going to suffer severe losses. You know, the next Fannie and Freddie bankruptcy will probably be bigger than the one we had in 2008. And in the meantime, jobs in housing-related sectors of the economy are going to disappear completely.
You'll see mass layoffs in everything related to selling homes, construction, refinancing, all those related jobs, mortgage brokers, real estate agents, contractors, you know, the workers. The entire industry will grind to a halt until prices plummet. Furthermore, after prices plummet, we won't have any new construction, but we will have some transactions.
We're going to have a lot of foreclosures, right? So, until then, everything will be dead. The problem is that much of that is not due to people creating a lot of new wealth. Much of it is driven simply by rising asset prices. And it has been a consequence of inflation. So, the same monetary policy that makes things at the grocery store so expensive is also making stocks, you know, more expensive.
But that adds positively to people's net worth . And obviously, higher prices at the supermarket, unless you're a farmer, I suppose do n't help you. You have to eat and you have to pay those prices every time you go to the supermarket. But in the stock market, you simply hold your shares and then calculate your net worth based on the share price.
So, who knows how real all of this is. But if you eliminate capital spending on AI, we're probably in a recession. Everything else. And if we're going to keep allocating more money to AI, what are we going to take money away from? Nobody wants to focus on what we'll have to sacrifice to get AI. And what will the impact be?
Even if AI does, and I believe it will be a great victory for humanity in terms of our collective standard of living in the future. The return on the entire investment happens later. How long after? Don't know. Will it take 2 years, 5 years into the future to start seeing a significant return on investment?
But in the meantime, we have to bear the cost of doing it. And can we do that given the amount of debt we already have? But meanwhile, Mario, the US government is competing, because now , look, when AI development began , the "Mag 7" had a cash reserve to spend on this . Well, they've already spent it all.
Now they are asking to borrow money. And they used to lend money to the U.S. government because they put their cash into Treasury bonds. Now, instead of lending to the government, they are borrowing in competition with it. So , I mean, everyone wants to borrow money. And in fact, the expected returns on investment in AI are so large that the amount of interest paid is irrelevant.
They don't care if the rates are, you know, 10%, 15% or 20%. What difference does it make to them? They're going to make a lot of money. But the question is: can the US government afford it? How are we going to pay those fees? At least, you know, without the tax revenue to cover them. I mean, I think if interest rates reach 10% in a couple of years—and you know, it might not take that long—and the national debt reaches 50 trillion in the same period, then 10% of 50 trillion is 5 trillion dollars.
Figure out where the government is going to get that money from. Because that's close to 100% of tax revenue. Schiff's final calculation is a cautionary tale about scale. $50 trillion of debt at 10% would mean $5 trillion in annual interest if that rate were applied to the entire balance. Existing government debt is not readjusted all at once.
Therefore, this is a simplified scenario, not a bill that arrives tomorrow. The broader conclusion is to question how dependent current valuations are on cheap loans and future growth. Observe whether the increase in Treasury yields is accompanied by lower stock market participation, pressure on housing, and increased demand for gold.
Those events would be relevant to his thesis. They would not prove that each prediction is correct. What worries you most? Your retirement savings, the value of your home, or your daily purchasing power? Share your opinion and subscribe for more analysis on the risks affecting Americans' money.
Comments 0